Bulgaria Wants to Make Gas Link to Turkey Part of Nabucco

Bulgaria has renewed its bid to make the future gas interconnection between Bulgaria and Turkey a section of the EU-backed gas transit pipeline Nabucco.

During a Nabucco Political Committee meeting in Austria, Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov proposed his country's gas link with Turkey to become a part of Nabucco co-financed by the other participants in the project.

The gas link is expected to cost about BGN 100 M (approximately EUR 50 M).

If the Political Committee of Nabucco rejects the idea, Bulgaria will pay for its gas link with Turkey, but will use it for its own emergency needs.

"We want real diversification. Nabucco is a vital for the countries that have gathered here, it's a project whose dimensions have not only regional but European significance," the Bulgarian PM said, as cited by bTV.

Borisov pointed out that Nabucco is a key part of the Southern Gas Corridor. He added that Bulgaria expects the Nabucco project to be fulfilled before 2018.

Hosted by the Austrian Energy Ministry and attended by the EU Energy Commissioner G?nther Oettinger, Bulgaria's Prime Minister Boyko Borisov and the Energy Ministers from Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Turkey alongside the Nabucco shareholders, the Political Committee reiterated its full and resounding support for Nabucco.

The committee confirmed further that the current legal and regulatory framework for the Nabucco project applies under the current IGA (Inter Governmental Agreement), PSA (Project Support Agreement) and also for the project starting at the Bulgarian border, New Europe informs.

The EU-backed Nabucco gas pipeline project is expected to ease Europe's energy dependence on Russia by carrying gas from Central Asia to Western Europe via Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Austria.

Bulgaria moved to link its natural gas grid to those of its neighbors after the January 2009 gas war between Russia and Ukraine, which cut off the Russian gas supplies to Bulgaria for full three weeks leaving it without natural gas in the middle of the winter.

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